Her Name Was Buttercup
by showerstoflowers
Summary: Peter's a recluse lacking in social skills and she's an amnesiac lying naked in his field. "What are you? Some kind of cabbage patch vampire?" PPOV.


Written for the "Showers to Flowers O/S Contest"

**Picture No.**: #11

**Title**: Her Name Was Buttercup

**Word count**: 3,469

**Rating**: T

**Pairing**: Peter/Charlotte

**Summary**: Written for the "Showers to Flowers O/S Contest." Peter's a recluse lacking in social skills and she's an amnesiac lying naked in his field. "What are you? Some kind of cabbage patch vampire?" PPOV.

**Disclaimer**: I own nada…zilch…zero…nil…nought…nothing…bugger-all…sweet FA… (You get the idea.) Everything belongs to Stephenie Meyer – I just borrow her best characters and fiddle with their fangs (:

**A/N**: This is set before there's any Cullen involvement.

8

When I moved to Wyoming, I hadn't been looking for much. I wanted a house with no neighbours and a bit of land – I didn't want to be mowing my lawn in some suburb with snotty-nosed kids peering over a foot-high fence at me while I sparkled in the sun like I was made from fucking glitter.

No. I wanted wilderness and privacy.

And I fucking got that.

Alice, Jasper's wife, had seen a ranch house going on sale in Jackson Hole and had called me. She had told me to not bother looking and just call the guy to buy it straight away. It was perfect, she said.

So, trusting the woman that had saved both me and Jasper from Maria's camp _and_ tamed the fearsome and bloodthirsty vampire I slaved under for _years_, I called the man and bought the house.

Then, it was moving day.

I drove for hours, trying to actually _get_ to the fucking place, only to find I hadn't just bought a low-key house with a bit of land.

I had bought a mansion with its own miniature mountain range.

It was huge, made from the finest pale wood and the most expensive stone, with fifteen separate rooms, three floors, a heated swimming pool, and a private entrance complete with security gate.

I stepped out of my broken down Chevy, carrying my tiny duffle bag – my _only _luggage, containing _all _my possessions – and just gawped at the floor-to-ceiling windows and pretty, manicured bushes.

I called Alice as soon as my jaw was able to rise from the expensive gravel beneath my feet.

"What the _fuck_?"

"Nice to hear from you, too."

I raged. "You little… You _know_ me. What the hell made you think I would want a house like _this_?"

"It's not like you can't afford it, Peter."

"That's not the fucking point!"

"Look, you need that house, okay? Trust me."

"Trust you?" I growled. "I _did _fucking trust you, and I got this eyesore for my trouble."

"Jasper's giving me the face that says 'Hand the phone over'. Bye."

I tried to calm down – I _did_ – but it was next to impossible. My thirst was flaring wildly out of control.

"Peter, stop shouting at my wife," Jasper said as soon as he was on the line.

"Fuck you, Jasper. Do you know what I'm standing in front of? Have you actually _seen _it?"

"No."

"Get Alice to draw you a fucking picture and _then _we'll talk."

I slammed the phone down, dropped my bag, and went on a hunt for an animal close by that didn't smell like shit. I was too tired to go find a granny to munch on.

When I was finished, walking back up the drive and scanning the grassland around the house that sloped off and up into mountains, I decided that I would sell the place as soon as possible.

I received a phone call that very second.

"Peter, Alice is going insane. Whatever you just did, undo it."

I hissed. "No way. I am not staying here."

"Alice just told me what's going down, and you need to stay."

I paused. "Did she draw you a picture?"

"Yes."

"So, you know how fucking ugly the place is?"

"Yes."

"You're asking a lot."

"It's important.

I sighed. "_That_ important?"

"Yes."

"And I'm guessing that I'm not allowed to know why?"

"No, you're not."

I didn't know what to do. On one hand I trusted the two vamps on the phone, whereas on the other hand I hated having more space than I knew what to do with.

I made a whining noise. "I hate you two."

"I know," Jasper replied. "You can forgo expensive Christmas gifts."

"Fuck you two. You're not getting _anything_."

I switched the phone off, threw it in my truck, and picked up my bag.

I was a simple Southern boy with a huge-ass house, and I did the only thing I could think of doing: I chose one room and nested in it.

It wasn't the biggest room, or the fanciest, but it did have a long cushy couch and a flat screen TV bolted to the opposite wall. It also had a wide bay window that overlooked the longest stretch of grassland around the house – it was a little field of yellow.

I lay about, reading old letters from acquaintances that I had read thousands of times and lazily watching bad TV. It was stable, it was lonely, and it was what it had been all of my life.

My human days were hot and boring working in the fields, my newborn ones were spent feeding, fucking and strategising in the camp, and my nomad ones were just endless.

I hadn't had a lay in years, my mind was full of nothing, and I didn't really want to change any of it.

Humans were bad news, always wanting something from you and taking what they could, and I loathed being around my own kind – they were always on guard because of my collection of newborn scars, and I didn't like being around Alice and Jasper too often because…well, that shit was just sickening.

All those little chirping Disney birds flying around and Jasper making huge goo-goo eyes at Alice 24/7? I couldn't handle that for extensive periods of time – my manliness took a knock every five seconds at their place.

I still couldn't believe I was actually staying in the house – I was a grumpy-ass vampire and, surely, that allowed me some leeway? I was meant to be crabby and crusty, not taking orders from ladies half my size.

But then, Jasper had told me to stay as well – though Alice was his mate, when it came to me he always did what was in my best interests. Comradeship and all that shit.

So I just pushed myself deeper into the couch and closed my eyes.

8

Three weeks later, it wasn't exactly a subtle change that told me something was going on – you know, like the wind shifting and carrying a scent through the open window, or a very slight tremor running through the ground that I picked up using my vampire senses.

No. It was me standing up from the couch with my body-shape dented into it, feeling a little thirsty and absently wondering whether to go on a hunt, and looking out of the window.

Yeah. Using my eyes. I didn't even need my fantastic vampire eyesight to see that there was some weird shit going down, because about ten metres from the window, lying in the yellow flowers, was a girl.

There was a naked chick in my grass.

I was young and horny enough to have the thoughts of stranger sex, but I was old and cranky enough to have the thoughts of how she was ruining my flowers by putting ass-prints in them.

I just stood there and stared for a minute, wondering why in hell someone would be buck-naked in my flowers – was she a welcoming gift?

Whether she was or wasn't, she was looking pretty fucking inviting. I was twitching south of my belt.

I frowned and looked down, realising I didn't even have a belt on…or pants, for that matter...or even a shirt.

When had I taken all my clothes off, bar my boxer shorts?

Well, it had happened, and I wasn't feeling particularly kind to the naked woman who was making my ice-cold skin heat. I was meant to be a crotchety (technically-)old bastard and she was ruining my image.

I stomped to the open window. "Hey!"

She didn't move.

I was a grown-ass vampire – so, what the hell was I doing yelling out of a window like a defenceless little old woman? A little human didn't scare me.

I walked through the house, up the hall, out of the front door, around the house, past the garages, past the pool, and towards the field of yellow, wishing I could move at vampire-speed. It was exhausting walking so slowly in such a huge place.

But I was just glad it was slightly overcast, meaning I didn't sparkle like shit in front of her precious little human eyes.

And then a thought hit me, square between _my_ eyes.

She had no heartbeat.

I hadn't taken a breath. I took one.

_Vampire_.

I hissed instinctively.

That seemed to rouse her like a tiger being poked by a stick… Or not.

The woman did nothing. She just lay on her side, facing away from me, with her ear to the ground and her legs tucked up to her middle.

I puzzled, my defence dropping – a vampire without any sense of danger?

I looked over her properly for the first time. Her skin was pale and luminescent, like any vampire's, but hers looked silkier and it rose and fell in smooth curves, especially at her hips.

I liked hips. And ass. She had a good ass – it was slightly dimpled, and _round_.

A noise rose in the back of my throat – a cross between a groan and a whine.

Suddenly, she shifted slightly. Her long shapely legs stretched out, her shining blonde curls fell from her shoulder, and she rolled.

My eyes were met with a pair of closed ones.

"Christ."

She was pretty. That's all I could think as she pressed her hand and her ear to the ground. Her cheeks were full, her nose sloping, and she had a tiny little beauty spot on the right side of her top lip that I instantly just wanted to touch.

Her pale pink lips puckered. "Shh."

I stared down at her. Her voice was pretty too.

She snuggled into the dirt.

I raised an eyebrow. "What are you? Some kind of cabbage patch vampire?"

She opened her eyes and glared, pale lids narrowing over black orbs. "Be quiet. I'm listening to the worms."

Well, fuck me. Crazy to boot. Was it strange to instantly like her for it?

I squatted next to her. "What's your name, sugar? You got one?"

Her brow furrowed. "I think it's Robert."

"O-_kay_…"

"But I could be thinking of something else."

"We'll go with the something else."

She needed a name. That's all I knew at that moment. I couldn't have a conversation with a crazy, naked chick if she didn't have a name – it just seemed wrong.

So, the first thing I did? I looked around.

Grass…mountains… I couldn't exactly call her Rocky... But there were so many fucking flowers, lighting up her skin yellow…

"Hey, Buttercup?"

She smiled. "I like that. That's my name."

"Sure is. Wanna come inside?"

She scanned me. I just waited.

"I can see your dick."

I looked down, finding the front button of my shorts were open.

I looked back up and shrugged. "Happens. I mean, I can see _everything_ of yours."

She looked down at her curvaceous body. "Oh, yeah."

_Oh, yeah_ was right… I coughed myself out of my miniature trance and stood, buttoning my shorts.

"So. Coming?"

She looked up at me, her eyes following every line of my body until they met mine again. She didn't even pause at my scars. Who the fuck _was_ she? Or what?

Slowly, in a very un-vampire-like way, she tucked her legs beneath herself and sat up. She was knelt in front of me, all perfect perky tits and long flowing gold curls.

I was twitching again. Her eyes noticed, zoning in on my groin.

I sighed. "Hey, eyes up here. I'm not checking _you_ out."

"Yes, you were," she shot back, not removing her gaze.

_Busted_.

I bit my tongue after that, letting her have her little look-see. Eventually her eyes became unglued and she stood very slowly, looking a bit shaky on her legs.

I frowned. "When was the last time you fed, Buttercup?"

She scrunched up her nose in confusion. "Huh?"

"You know, blood?"

She looked at me like I was motherfucking insane. "Why would I eat _that_?"

I scratched the back of my head awkwardly, toeing the dirt. "You…uh, do know what you are don't you?"

I had never heard of a vampire not knowing they were one – I mean, _yes_, they could be ignorant to the technicalities and them being an _actual '_vampire', but not that they were something different, something strange, something…_else_.

Except this girl seemed that way. She didn't move like a vampire, talk like a vampire…hell, she didn't even _eat_ like a vampire. Did she even have the instincts of a vampire? I wasn't so sure.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm a girl. You boy, me girl."

So she'd seen _Tarzan_, at least. And she had a sense of humour. It was just the rest of her that was fucked up.

I decided to leave the vampire bit for the foreseeable. "What _do_ you eat then?"

Her eyes lit up. "Oh! There was this really good stuff I had the other day. I think it was potato fried in something."

I stared. "And that doesn't taste like shit to you?"

She shook her head. I scratched mine.

"Okay."

"Do you have any food?" She asked hopefully.

I looked over her black eyes and the light shadows surrounding them – if she had never consumed blood, how could she look so healthy? Starvation, even a couple of months, took one hell of a toll on a vampire, and she seemed _a lot _older than a newborn. I would've even gone so far to say that she was around my age – my gut said so.

"I don't," I replied. "But I can get some."

8

A few hours later I discovered that the delivery guy wouldn't come any closer than the security gate. Apparently the previous owners had been assholes and not liked anyone earning so much less than them to appear on their drive. He left everything at the gate and drove off, leaving me to take in the few paper bags of sundries.

Buttercup was sitting on my couch in my shirt, watching a re-run of some teen drama that I didn't give a shit about but she seemed quite happy to stare at.

When I passed the room on the way to the kitchen though, she shot up.

"Food?"

I nodded my head to the granite counter and unpacked everything. There was food, bathroom essentials, some clothes, and a couple of hair things. She had nice hair. It was just caked in dirt.

She immediately grabbed a bag of bread and a can of spray cheese, ripping into the bread and spraying the cheese into her mouth.

It was like a train wreck. I couldn't look away.

She stared up at me, chewing away. Her dark beauty spot was a blob of orange cheese…

A thought hit me. "Do you like meat?"

She nodded enthusiastically.

"Rare?"

She shook her head.

"_Raw_?"

She sighed and closed her eyes as if she were in bliss. At least I knew where she got her blood from.

I had to ask though. "What about human meat?"

The corner of her mouth lifted in surprised disgust, revealing the mesh of bread and cheese in her mouth to me. I resisted a grimace.

So the girl wasn't attracted to humans? The shit was unreal.

I just shook my head, tired of the puzzle that was the half-naked cheese-covered chick in my kitchen. I was just going to look after her for a little while, maybe help her remember a few things, and then she was going to be on her way.

I refocused on her. She was spraying some more cheese into the corner of her mouth, trying to fit in as much as possible. It was disgusting.

I was already hooked.

8

It wasn't long before I found out how Buttercup could eat human food.

She couldn't. She just threw it all back up again a couple of hours later.

"That always happens," she informed me as she came back out of the bathroom from another round of tossing her cookies.

"Ever think you're doing it wrong?" I asked.

"Hell no."

And that was the end of that.

8

I pulled the lump of steak from its plastic packaging and threw it down onto her plate.

She tore into it like no one's business and, besides the smell, the shit was pretty hot.

She had blood splattered up her cheek and down her chin, and she was using her sharp little pearly whites how she was made to. It was beautiful.

"What are you staring at?" She asked, and I refocused.

"Nothing."

"You sure? Your dick's twitching again."

It seemed like it was doing that a lot recently.

8

I was putting my foot down.

"No."

"Why?" She asked, her eyes wide and innocent.

"Because…"

There was nothing else I could say. She wanted to go roll around in the grass and listen to the worms with me, and she wanted to go do it naked. It had been a couple of weeks and I knew if I got anywhere near her while we were both naked and writhing in the dirt…well, hell, it was pretty obvious what would happen.

Buttercup smirked. "Because…you can't keep it in your pants?"

"I've been doing pretty well so far, haven't I? But, no, that's not it at all."

"I wouldn't care if it was."

That was when I found out that Buttercup was up for a roll in the dirt with me at any time of my choosing.

8

It was a week or so later that a thought hit me – _Alice_…

I called her.

"Hello?" Her voice came.

"You know who it is."

"Of course I do." I could hear her smirk. "How do you like her?"

I looked over my shoulder and into the kitchen – Buttercup was baking M&M and pickle brownies. "I like her a lot."

"Knew you would," Alice said.

"You got me to buy this house because she would show up, right?" I asked.

I heard Alice nodding. "She's been looking for you for a long time, Peter."

Looking for me? "What do you mean?"

She was incredulous. "You mean you haven't figured it out yet?"

"Figured out _what_?"

"She's your _mate_, Peter. You dumbass."

I stared at Buttercup as she bent over to put the brownie mix in the oven – her long t-shirt rode up and showed off her naked ass.

I growled lowly…before shaking myself and asking, "My _mate_?"

Though…I _was_ pretty sure my mate would bake brownies half-naked too.

"Yes," Alice sighed.

"She's a little…crazy."

"I don't doubt it. Her maker wasn't kind. He caused her enough brain damage changing her that she doesn't remember much of anything…"

I just nodded absently, listening along and watching Buttercup bake…until I thought I heard something odd.

"Say that again, Alice."

She sighed. "She was meant to meet you years and years ago in Maria's camp. But on the day Jasper went looking for people to turn…she just decided she didn't need any apples from the market."

"Apples?" I asked hollowly.

"Apples," Alice confirmed.

My mate never found me because of goddamn _apples_?

I resisted crushing the phone in my hand and simply threw it onto the kitchen counter as I stomped by it and out of the back door.

I needed to tear some shit up.

8

When I returned to the house it was late, my hands were covered in rock dust, and I found Buttercup on the phone with Alice.

"Uh-_huh_," she said, sounding disbelieving. "So…I'm not _meant_ to eat fries?"

"No," Alice replied.

"Oh."

Buttercup looked crestfallen. I instinctively took her into my arms. "Hey. _Hey_. You can eat fries any time you want."

She beamed. Even her beauty spot looked happy.

"Thanks, Peter," Alice said sarcastically from the other end of the line. "I've just spent hours telling her she's meant to drink blood."

"Whatever," I muttered, taking the phone from Buttercup and ending the call.

A lull drifted between us, and we just stared at each other.

She spoke first. "She said my name's Charlotte."

I smiled. "That's a nice name. Better than 'Buttercup'."

"I like Buttercup."

"So do I."

Her gaze became intense. "I looked for you. I've looked for you _forever_. There was a tugging, you see – right here…"

She took my hand and put it on her belly.

I grinned lopsidedly. "You sure that's not from all the shit you've been eating?"

Without a word, she reached forward and pulled my face to hers. I was stunned. Her kiss was so soft, so…tender, but her hands were needy and tugging at my hair.

She broke away, panting – another thing she hadn't realised she didn't need to do, but which I hoped she continued to.

Her dark eyes met mine. "Want a pickle brownie?"

And I actually considered it.


End file.
